A. Background of the Research
English language teaching in Indonesia emphasizes on the students’ ability to master the four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. The four skills should be reinforced equally. The integration of the four skills is the only plausible approach within a communicative, interactive framework. (Brown, 2000: 234). The standard competence of the four skills is enable students to communicate in spoken and written English accurately. The Department of National Education Curriculum 2004 states that,
“Standard Kompetensi Bahan Kajian adalah berkomunikasi dalam Bahasa Inggris lisan maupun tulis secara lancar dn akurat sesuai dengan konteks sosialnya. 1) Mendengarkan, memahami berbagai makna (interpersonal, ideasional, tekstual) dalam berbagai teks yang memiliki tujuan komunikatif, struktur teks, dan ciri kebahasaan tertentu. 2) Berbicara, mengungkapkan berbagai makna (interpersonal, ideasional, tekstual) dalam berbagai teks yang memiliki tujuan komunikatif, struktur teks, dan ciri kebahasaan tertentu. 3) Membaca, memahami makna berbagai makna (interpersonal, ideasional, tekstual) dalam berbagai teks yang memiliki tujuan komunikatif, struktur teks, dan ciri kebahasaan tertentu. 4) Menulis, mengungkapkan berbagai makna (interpersonal, ideasional, tekstual) dalam berbagai teks yang memiliki tujuan komunikatif, struktur teks, dan ciri kebahasaan tertentu (Depdiknas, 2004).
four kinds of skills. The model of communication competence is taken from Murcia (1995:10). In her model Murcia tried to develop the competencies in order that the students can achieve communicative competence. The core of communicative competence is discourse competence. Discourse competence concern with the selection, sequencing and the arrangement of word, structure, sentences and utterances to achieve unified spoken or written text (1995: 13). In order to come to discourse competence the learner has to acquire some competencies namely linguistic competence, action competence and socio cultural competence.
Hymnes in Freeman (2000: 121) pointed that being able to communicative requires more than linguistic competence; it also requires communicative competence. The competence in English language as a foreign language will help the students to express ideas and feelings and use in the society. They are also expected to be able to make personal or social decision and have responsibility, and make use the analytical and imaginative competencies in themselves (Depdiknas, 2004:5).
subject given in class. The condition like this can make the students feel bored and do not like to study. At home, the problems may appear when they recall the subjects from school and they still do not understand the lesson and none of the people at home can help them. If this condition continues they will feel very bored and not interested in studying English. In this case the teacher’s role is very important, that is to encourage them to study harder and better.
In teaching writing, a genre – based approach refers to teaching students how to make use of language patterns to achieve coherent and purposeful composition (Hyland in Widodo, 2007: 173). Hence, there are some importance of teaching Genre – based writing as :
1. Genre serves as the frame of reference to which a particular text to be oriented.
2. It is closely tied with the discussion of communicative purpose (intention), and conventionalized format (rhetorical structure) of a text, and linguistic realization.
3. It provides a reference for a particular communicative purpose to
achieve, stages of rhetorical structures to cover and linguistic features to stick, by which the readers’ expectations can be met effectively. 4. It provides frameworks that recognize and share the same features
Thus, a genre-based approach to the teaching of writing is one in which writing is viewed as both process and product of the whole process of writing.
Generally, text-types maybe grouped into : 1. Narratives : to tell stories to entertain readers.
2. Recounts : to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events in original
sequences or to tell what happened both personally and factually. 3. Instructions / procedures : to show how processes or events are
achieved or how something is done.
4. Explanations : to tell how or why something work.
5. Information / reports : to present factual information about a class of things and their characteristics.
6. Arguments / Expositions : to provide reasons for a state of affairs or a judgment.
7. Descriptions : to describe living or non living things.
For instance, text types maybe found in letters, articles, text books, journals, recipes, manuals, songs, novels, advertisements, notices, tickets, speeches, lectures, or menus (Partridge in Widodo, 2006: 177)
confidence, students need more practice so that teachers are suggested to create and use interesting method and media.
It is undeniable that writing is probably one the most important things in life. By writing people are able to express ideas, feeling and opinion and able to communicate with other people. In addition, most of important official documents such as laws, formal regulations, treaties, guaranties, contracts and so forth are made in the written form. In daily life, people get announcement, advertisements, letters, information, even warning in the form of writing. At school, there are a lot of writing works such as taking a note, making lists, completing laboratory reports and composing any kinds of texts and others. In sort, people are consciously or unconsciously engaged in writing a lot.
Basic competency in writing skill for class X of Senior High School students is focused on writing text, such as recount (or narration), description and news with variation structures of modification (KTSP SMA).
On the other hand, the fact in class showed that the students had problems with their writing skill. They got difficulties to generate and organize their idea in the written-form. It can be identified by several indicators in the class related with their writing skill such as;
1) Most of the students faced difficulties in starting to make compositions. 2) Some of them made many grammatical mistakes.
3) Some of the students got difficulties in expressing ideas even lack of
4) The students were not able to organize the ideas logically. 5) The students were not capable to develop readable paragraphs. 6) They were even careless about punctuations.
Based on the quantitative data, the writer found that the students, whose their daily score taken by their English teacher, who got mark in writing more than 7 were only 5 students. Those who got between 6 and 7 were 10 students, and the other students got less than 6 from totally 40 students in that class. They didn’t show their writing competence well. They performed some mistakes in grammar by using uncontrolled pattern, almost 80% of them often mistyped the words, 50% had illogical ideas, and 75% did not have well structure. Shortly, they had low writing skill. In short, the students who fulfill the minimum passing grade (KKM) of speaking are less than 60% .The result of course can not be said as satisfying result. KKM is very important as it is due to now, every school must use ‘School Level Based Curricula’ (KTSP: Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan). This curriculum has certain policy that each school has to fulfill minimum required standard (KKM) by every lesson, as well as for English lesson.
few sentences telling about experience. The vocabulary used in their text is very limited and even, created misunderstanding toward the reader. They made a lot of grammatical mistakes and used inaccurate vocabularies.
The data showed that 77% of the students did not fulfill the passing grade of writing class. The minimal passing grade for class X is that 75% of the students had to achieve score 65. Comparing the students’ writing assessment and the score in minimal passing grade, the students can be categorized lack on writing skill.
The teacher also held interview and class observation to get supporting data about the cause of the students’ lack of writing skill. By observing the students’ interview result, most of students felt they were lack of practice in writing. Hence, they found difficulties to express their idea into appropriate sentences and paragraph.
From students’ social environment and family background point of view, it can be noticed that most of the students (60% of students) come from modest family. Their parents are farmers, sellers, housemaids, and factory workers. They are under welfare family. It means it difficult for them to gain English out of school, such as English course.
parents also admitted that many of them (up to 40%) could not assist their children in studying because they were very busy to work.
Beside that, the teaching learning process did not offer supporting situation for the students to improve writing. The teacher taught the materials monotonously. For example, when he taught a certain topic, he just explained, write on the board, and the students listened to him. Then, he asked them to do exercises. It lasted time to time and created boring English for the students. The teacher still taught the students with routine activities without realizing that it would make the students bored and lost their attention in the material. As a result, they got nothing from the lesson. Douglas stated that, “Routine activities in learning can make the students bored. As a result, their motivation and participation in learning will
decrease” (1987: 48).
Since the students felt that they were also lack of vocabulary and grammar, it discouraged them to practice writing more. In short, the students themselves had low motivation a factor which will be very significant in mastering second language acquisition (Brown, 2000: 150). In this case, interest also becomes a crucial factor to consider in deciding teaching-learning activities for the students. In other words, there should be interesting atmosphere that encourage the students in learning writing.
skills. Other factors which also ought to be considered in media selection come from our instructional system model, that is, the organization of groups, the time available and the space in which the media will be used (Munadi, 2008: 255).
Therefore, by using comic books as teaching material, the writer expected that reading ability of students class X of SMAN Jenawi would increase. The participation of the students and the active involvement of the teacher were very crucial. In another words, the students needed to be active in taking a role as a learner. And the teacher had an important role and strategic position in developing student’s reading skill. This strategic role related with teacher role as facilitator, motivator, learning resources, and organizatory in teaching and learning process.
B. Problem Formulation
Based on the background and the problem identification, this study particularly aimed at finding the answers to the following questions
1. Does the use of combination between word map and comics strips as teaching media improve the students’ writing recount-text skill of the first grade students of SMA Negeri Jenawi?
2. How did word-map and comics improve the students’ writing recount-text skill?
3. What were the problems occurred during the application of comics as a media to teach writing in class X of SMA Negeri Jenawi?
C. Objectives of the Research
1. The General Objective
The general objective is to describe the implementation of word-map and comics strips as teaching media to improve the students’ writing recount-text skill in class X of SMA Negeri Jenawi Karanganyar Academic Year 2010/2011.
2. The Specific Objectives
The specific objectives of the research are:
a. to identify whether word map and comics strips as teaching media
are able to improve the students’ writing recount-text skill on the first grade of SMA Negeri Jenawi
b. to identify the effectiveness of word-map and comics strips to improve the students’ writing recount-text skill
c. to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the use of comics as a media to teach writing in class X of SMA Negeri Jenawi.
D. The Benefits of the Study
By the thesis the author expects that this research would give several benefits, both theoretically and practically.
1. Theoretical Benefits
a. To produce a new knowledge in teaching foreign language, like English, especially on writing recount text by using comics as a teaching media.
b. Becomes a reference for next researchers whether with the similar
2. Practical Benefits a. For the Students
1) Get an easy way in organizing their idea(s) or information(s) integrated in writing recount text.
2) Make them aware that there is difference in culture in each nation which causes different text.
b. For the Teacher
1) Gets knowledge to improve teaching strategy, especially in
writing recount text.
2) Improves professionalism and abilities in teaching, especially in
writing recount text.
3) Identifies students’ necessaries and problems and gives solution(s).
c. For the School
1) Betterment on teaching and learning English.
2) Solution(s) for students’ problem(s) in writing report text in English.
